Friday

"Friday" a term that rates nothing less than "jannat" in a normal middle east tortured employee's life. But for a bored house wife who does not have much to look forward to, it would have been just another day. But no, the clutches of a friday is so long you actually cannot escape.

A week day for me begins with a usual fight between my inner "yin and yang" well yin wants me to get up from my bed, go out and run while yang tells me you don't have anything to do today so you can sleep till noon that way, you will be bored for lesser hours, i believe all of us know who will win that fight on most of the days. But since sleeping till noon and skipping meals followed by sleepless nights was actually creating health problems, i decided to let yin win for some days. 

So a day when yin wins usually go about like this, i get up, i look out of my window, see the wide roads and compare them with the road in front of my house back in thrissur and wonder if it is two lane or single lane and i sigh, then i look at the people dressed smartly heading out to their offices, i think about my non existent career, i sigh, so after so many sighs like this i move on to treadmill (or go out on days i can drag out myself) and i run. I run thinking about every negative point in my life, i sigh even more ( see this is exactly what yang tells me, sleep and save yourself all this trouble). Then a couple of phone calls, books and meals, my day ends. Then i again go to my window look at the traffic and wonder where all these people are going, imagine some dad's coming back and mom's cooking in my head and i go back to sleep. 

So what can possibly change on a friday in such a boring routine? It begins right in the morning when i look out of my window, nobody is rushing off to work, all are sleeping because it is a holiday, then i go out to run, nobody else is out there running or walking, all are sleeping because it is a holiday. Then i come back and i am sad because i have not seen any freaking human being since i woke up. And that kicks off my friday depression. 

The next torture of friday begins when i figure out, i cannot make any phone calls today because either people are sleeping or they have better things to do. So i am not only deprived of seeing another human being but also hearing a human voice. I move to my regular job site and puff!!!! empty, not even house maid requirement adds come up on friday and i realise i am probably the only one browsing net on a weekend morning. Then i open fb, it is either people celebrating weekends (in middle east) or people gearing up for weekend (back home) and i realize i don't have a week to have a weekend. 

So i reach the height of Friday depression by that and i read read and read more so as to escape the world outside the book i am reading. So by night, i end up with no food in kitchen and no strength to actually get up and cook. Oh yes, you got it right, i order home delivery (the only part of my friday routine i actually like :) ). I eat i look out of my window and see the friday night traffic blocks and i wonder where all these people are going, i magine people having fun with their friends and family taking a break from their monotonous life and i go back to bed. So there goes my weekend routine. I am actually proud to say that i have a week and i have a weekend now.  May be boring but it is mine :).

Why do i read ?

I know, a question is not a good title but this is exactly the thought that forced me to write this. When i say thought, i do not mean my thought. I know why i read or at-least i know why i can't stop reading but the title in question was voiced by many people around me.

Before i start answering i should tell you where i heard this for the first time. It was one of those elaborate two month summer holidays in grand ma's home where i spend it with books, dreams and talking to myself. Please don't think i had a terrible childhood reading this, trust me it was a great one (thanks to the world books opened for me). So in one of those event less days when i feasted on books ignoring basics like eating, taking bath etc, my mom asked me this. why do u read so much? Of course i was not old enough to challenge her asking for an alternative nor i was i farsighted to see she was just the first in a long line. But i did think why do i read? and the little me could only understand one thing i love stories and since books have so many of them, i read.

But later on, when i realized reading was a hobby that was getting lost in this generation, i started to wonder how did i start reading? My first memories of reading were of my grand mother, sitting on the big wooden chair in the front of our house, tilting her angle to meet sun and reading with large spectacles that covered half her face. When i first remember her reading old malayalam novels rented from a library of a parallel college near our house, (i used to get books for her from there). Then i saw my dad reading in the evenings after work. He rented from his office library. As time went on both these people gave me books which they thought were suitable for me. And slowly reading became a habit. Later on, my granny's reading reduced to magazines and later only to news papers but mine grew, i used to talk to her about all those different books i read when i could and to my dad, i used to buy books for him whenever i could. So that is how i started reading. Thanks to my achan and amuma. :)

So when time went on, my parents n grand parents influence on me reduced considerably. I became one of those rebellious teenagers stuck to tv (computer came later on and internet came further late). But again books never left me. I borrowed from friends and relatives as english books were totally absent in my home and i read malayalam books from my two old sources. So every time a vacation approached, i would run around here and there to find enough material to cover the holidays.

Then i reached my college days and it was from there i actually got the idea of buying books. But then i realized as a normal middle class girl from a government college i cannot actually afford to buy enough books to satisfy my thirst to read. But in college i found more people who actually liked reading and were nice enough to share it with me.so i had enough books at that stage of my life. Later on i found this place in the road side in our little town i found my treasure  There were these vendors who sold pirated copies of books at a cheaper rate. And yes from then on, i really started buying books to read.

Life went on, i kept reading through my success, through my depressions, through my loneliness, in the middle of our gang discussion, i kept reading and books evolved from a story teller to a companion to a friend and later on to become my soul mate. I became a college student employee wife, daughter in law, house wife and my reading evolved from comics to fiction to literature, biography , philosophy and so on.

Reading is like breathing for me, when i am away from a book i feel nervous. Even in the loneliest of the phases of life a book has given me company and told me don't worry i am there for you. When i was in doubt, a book gave me answers, when i thought less of myself, books told me i am worth more.

So my dear friends, at this point, i would like to request all of you to introduce your children to books. Of all the things you give them, of all the values you teach them, this will be the best gift and best morale that will guide them through life. I would like to thank my grandma and my dad for doing this for me and all those street vendors who actually made it possible for me to read.

മഴ

ആത്മാവിലേക്ക് പെയ്തിറങ്ങുന്ന മഴ

ഹൃദയ താളത്തോട്‌ ഇഴുകി ചേര്‍ന്ന്
രക്തത്തില്‍ ഉന്മാദം തുടിപ്പിക്കുന്ന മഴ

കുഞ്ഞികൈകളില്‍ അമ്മയുടെ വാത്സല്യമായി
ചവിട്ടുപടികളില്‍ അച്ഛന്റെ അനുഗ്രഹമായി

പ്രണയം പൂത്ത വഴികളില്‍ പനിനീരായി
നൊമ്പരത്തിന്റെ വിങ്ങലില്‍ കണ്ണുനീര്‍ ചാലായി

സൌഹൃദങ്ങളിലെ  കുളിര്‍മയായി
ജീവിതവീധിയിലെ വഴികാട്ടിയായി

വാര്‍ധക്യത്തിലെ  കൂട്ടുകാരിയായി
മരണത്തിലെ മണ്ണിന്റെ ഈര്‍പമായി

മറവിയുടെ താഴുകളില്‍ ഉണര്‍ത് പാട്ടായി
നാളെയുടെ കൊതിപ്പിക്കുന്ന സുഗന്ധമായി

ആത്മാവിലേക്ക് പെയ്തിറങ്ങുന്ന മഴ

തണല്‍

ഈറന്‍ മിഴിയുടെ ആര്‍ദ്രതയിലും 

നനവ്‌ പടര്‍ന്ന കവിള്‍ തടത്തിലും 

വര്‍ഷ മേഘങ്ങളുടെ വിരഹ ദുഃഖം ഞാന്‍ കണ്ടിരുന്നു 

കൊഴിഞ്ഞു വീണ മല്ലി പൂക്കള്‍ 

കാലടിയില്‍ ഞെരിയാതിരികാന്‍ 

വഴിമാറി നടന്നപ്പോളും  

ചാഞ്ഞു വന്ന ചില്ലകളെ

 സ്പര്‍ശിക്കാതെ ഒഴിഞ്ഞു 

മാറി നടന്നപ്പോളും 

പെയ്തു തോര്‍ന്ന മഴയുടെ 

ബാക്കി പത്രങ്ങലില്‍ നിന്നുള്ള 

ഒളിച്ചോട്ടം ഇവയെന്ന് ഞാന്‍ അറിഞ്ഞിരുന്നു 

എങ്കിലും ഞാന്‍ എന്റെ നിഴല്‍ നിന്നോട് ചേര്‍ത്ത് വെച്ചു  

വര്‍ഷവും വേനലും മാറി വസന്തം വരുമെന്ന പ്രതീക്ഷയില്‍ 

ആ വസന്തത്തിന്റെ നിറവില്‍  നീയെന്റെ 

നിഴലിന്റെ തണല്‍ തിരിച്ചറിയുമെന്ന വിശ്വാസത്തില്‍ 

Yes, I am a vegetarian

"Oh you are a vegetarian? so what will you eat? " Honestly, this is the most annoying question in my life. Even the standard question " If you are not employed, why don't you have a baby? " annoys me a little less. The point is if you eat meat, good for you, but please don't talk to me like i am missing the best thing in the world. It is like telling a person wearing a cooling glass if you remove it, you will see better. The one wearing cooling glass obviously knows how it is without wearing that. It is just that he made a choice to wear it because he feels more comfortable that way.

I am a vegetarian by choice, not because i am a brahmin, not because my parents forced me to, not because i am on a diet, it is just because i am comfortable being so. I am not one of those people who smirk when i see someone is eating meat on my table, i am comfortable handling non veg, I just don't put in my mouth. So please mind your business and eat whatever you want, i can order my own food.

I have heard this theory that we are really three people, the person we think we are, the person others think we are, and the person we really are. and i believe in it. Because mostly if we care about what others think about us, we really cannot live life to the fullest, and the distance between what we think we are and what we really are should be minimum, for me being a vegetarian is about closing down that distance. I don't know why but the two things that disturb me the most is when someone forces me to do something i am really afraid of and when i am hurting someone knowingly. Both these things actually define the who i really am part because these are involuntary reactions that come from inside me. Now about the who i think i am part, I believe if i force myself to eat meat without thinking about it, i am actually hiding a real part of me which aches.

I can always think of meat as just food and chew it down by ignoring my own feelings and just by thinking aaah, its tasty . But the truth is at some point later that day or the next, the real me pops into my mind and will start disturbing me. I can always shut it down and ignore it again but then, i will be running away from who i really am and the distance between the real me and the one i think i am keeps on growing.

So my dear friends, when someone says that person dosen't like something accept it, they may have a good reason for it, which either you won't undrestand or which they do not want to share with you, so please don't force people to do things your way, it might be right for you, but remember that is not the only way. There is always a path that is right for every person which only they can identify.

ഇരട്ടകള്‍

ആരണ്യകത്തിലെ ആമ്പല്‍ പൂവേ 

നീ അറിയുന്നുവോ നിന്റെ ജന്മ പുണ്യം

ആര്‍ക്കുമേ സ്വന്തം അല്ലാത്ത സുന്ദരി

നീ അറിയുന്നുവോ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തിന്‍ മധുരം 

പാപ പുണ്യത്തിന്‍ കണക്കെടുപില്ലാത്ത 

സ്വച്ചന്ത മാരുതന്റെ നെഞ്ചിലെ നര്‍ത്തകി 

കറുത്ത ചെയ്തികളുടെ പുകപടലങ്ങലാല്‍ 

ശ്വാസനാളം അടഞ്ഞ എന്നേ അറിയുന്നുവോ നീ 

സ്വന്തം സുഗന്ധം പോലും വിട്ടുപോയ   

ഇ കൂടപിരപ്പിനെ അറിയുന്നുവോ നീ

നിന്നിലെകുള്ള ദൂരം താണ്ടാന്‍ കഴിയില്ലയെങ്ങിലും 

നിന്റെ  ഹൃദയതാളം ഞാന്‍ അറിയുന്നു 

വ്യത്യസ്തമാം വേഷങ്ങള്‍ ആടുന്നുവേങ്ങിലും 

നമ്മുടെ ആത്മാവ് എന്നും ഒന്നായിരിക്കുമല്ലോ 

The garlic bread....

Garlic bread - Soft Fluffy bread with crispy hard brown crust is just the right start for a delicious meal any time

This is the description you  will find about garlic bread in any pizza hut website. Garlic bread is like a side dish whenever you order a meal deal in pizza hut. I am sure all of you have wondered why they serve this, it is almost unwanted compared to a delicious juicy pizza. Trust me i have nothing against pizza even though Being a vegetarian limits my options to either margarita or veg pizza. But the secret is, i am one of those people who order a meal deal just to get the garlic bread.

It is actually the love for this side dish that forced me to think about life from a different angle. The angle we normally miss. Why is it that the pizza is always the one that is being marketed and not our dear garlic bread? Is the garlic bread not important enough? or is it because that people really don't care if they sell the garlic bread or not. Or may be because it is less costly. Or may be even because it is just a start for a meal time and not a real meal.

I would like to think of myself as a garlic bread in life. I am accessible only to those people who would separate me from my surroundings that are more profound than my personnel existence. I would like only those few people who can actually enjoy a garlic bread even though a pizza sits right next to it to come into my life. I mean i am available to all those who order a meal deal where the pizza is the star, but i open up only to those who realise that a garlic bread actually tastes good.

I know there are many garlic breads in between us. There are so many people who are known as somebody's son/daughter or somebody's wife/husband who is expected to come in as a package. What about them as an individual? I would like to believe that all these garlic breads have atleast one good chef who loves making them if not a whole bakery dedicated to them. Atleast some moments in their existence where they are appreciated for what they are. Where they actually will find a few people who appreciate their existence. Where they are important.

I don;t know how many of you will agree to me on this but i know a few would say in their mind, i will try enjoying a garlic bread next time i am in pizza hut. But dear garlic bread, i want you to remember there is this one me who loves you more than the pizza and i appreciate you for what you are. Dear readers, please remember, even if we are just garlic breads in a whole meal, remember there will be someone out there who loves a garlic bread.